Bring Some Fun Into It

So my friend Clarissa is pretty cool. She is out in Colorado being an awesome grad student, and often guilts me into remembering that I don't post often enough. Today she posted kind of a fun picture hunt, where you open your 8th picture folder, pull up the 8th picture in it, and write about it. As my folder is sorted by years then categories, I went an extra layer here, but this is my picture.

Long story short, in 2005, right after graduating high school, I got the chance to perform in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Edingburgh, Scotland. My high school theater club did "All I Really Know I Learned in Kindergarten", adapted from the book by Robert Fulghum with the same title. If you have never read anything of his, I highly, highly recommend it. This picture was taken at the foot of Arthur's Seat, a dormant volcano in the middle of Edinburgh. We had an afternoon off, and went on a hike. And, this blog is focused on museums, here is the tie-in.

Sometimes, even though I do love museums, I wish they were a little more fun. This picture comes from a free afternoon we had in Edinburgh. We had toured around a lot, visited several historic sites, but it was fun to do something just a little goofy. I think this is the big reason why my passion is in living history. At living history museums, instead of walking slowly and reading signs, I get to touch, try, and play. And yeah, maybe sometimes its more formulated for kids, but at 23 I still think I get to play around a bit. Science museums are also a good way to give it a try, though those that I have been to have really focused only on kids and very basic science principles that I luckily learned awhile back. That being said, my boyfriend and I quite enjoyed playing with the weather front machine at the Minnesota Science Museum.

So, and I know this has already been debated to death, but really, why can't history be fun? When Nate and I toured through the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit, it was like walking through a library with the stereotypical extra strict librarian. Nobody spoke a word. I think it would have been a great place to really get conversation going, especially since both Nate and I are historians and really like to discuss things like that. Instead, we waited until we were back out into the main part of the museum. Would something as simple as having music piped in have helped? I'm not sure. So think about it. What museums have you been to that could use some "funning" (yes I know that isn't a real word) up? What do you think would help? Could it be as simple as encouraging more discourse while visitors are still in the museum?